Week #90 - Training

Wow.. It surprises me to be writing so late (the email came in after 6:00 pm) but do not be alarmed, we have permission. It is because we came from a training super late. And I should tell you all what the training was about... TRAINING! That is right. I am training. I will say that this last Wednesday was the longest day of my life! The last Wednesday of the transfer cycle is to notify of the missionaries that will train. We had the district meeting, visited some people, but the day passed by incredibly slow. I was hoping with all my heart that I would train for my last two changes, so I was on edge the whole day if I was going to receive a call from the president or not. 

It was around 7 pm. I was already sad... Thinking I was not going to train, and it was in that moment when I received the call from the president. So, yes.  SUPER HAPPY! Nervous though, because it is a great responsibility. You have to be the best example for your trainee in everything. But I know that there is not any other way I would rather finish my mission. As for my new baby boy, it is another from Peru! He is named Elder Reyes. Or in English, Elder KINGS. That is right. He is a boss. I have only known him for a couple of hours, but he has already been a great example for me. He is ready to learn and to work.

I am honestly super excited. I'll admit, I was hoping for an American companion, because I never had one my entire mission. But oh well. This will be a blast.  I am staying in the area. Antequera will be my last area. 

And we are going to get fat. No lie. Just for Halloween, we received for too many candies and goodies.. I cannot even imagine Christmas and New Year's! I will be letting you know of the awesome experiences we will be having the next few weeks!

*** Between Brothers ***

Dear Landon, yeah it already seems like it's been forever since I told Mom and Dad about me having a girlfriend hehe. We were at Clay's yesterday for Will's baptism and to my surprise, they didn't even mention it to Maga or Clay! That's a W for me right now lol. Dad still makes fun of me in stupid ways. Anyway... the pumpkin drop went really good for my team. My catcher was the best out of all the catchers. We caught all 4 of our pumpkins that we dropped. The catcher that we had was just the duck cage with a tarp on top lol. Tomorrow we probably have to do all of our stupid calculations and stuff. My team gets extra credit though because we caught a pumpkin over 10 pounds (we actually caught 2 pumpkins over 10 pounds, but our teacher wasn't going to give us extra extra credit for that just because our catcher was the best hehe). Dad got a bunch of meat to smoke! He got ribs, brisket, pork and turkey! I don't understand how vegetarians even live lol. So yeah... Wuv, Keat

Dear Landon, so this week was the beginning of the 2nd quarter and it already sucks. Jk, but the reason why I said that is because I no longer have my favorite teacher Mr. Mineer. My new CACR teacher is Ms. Wilson, and she is a pretty good teacher. But she is horrible compared to Mineer. Since I was sick, I had to make up all of my work. As of now, I think that I have caught up on everything except for a few things. But, yeah, it sucks to miss school in middle school. And I kind of dealt with me being sick. I just have to take it easy in Gym, because that usually has an effect on me throughout the entire day. I don't know if I had told you, but the NBA season started last week! Along with that, my friends and I started up a Fantasy Basketball league. Right now, I am 0-1, but I am up by 22 in this game right now and just have to keep this lead and hope that those players don't go off (btw, I am constantly checking how much I am up by while writing this.) Other than that, a lot of family stuff has been going on. Like yesterday, we went to Will's Baptism and stopped by their house afterwards. Then today, we had Westra and Waffles. Except I did not eat anything and just played outside the whole time with the football. Love, Cooper

Dear Landon, I don't really know what to write about this week besides that I lost a game to a team that we have beaten before. I did really good, however, someone on their team is a ball hog and flopper with really bad refs. Like, I hit a three and got rammed into and they didn't even call a foul. I would've gotten a three pointer AND-1! I did hit another three that barely went in. But, this kid I was talking about, he actually was like a major flopper. If he got touched, he would yell and fall down. I think we could've had a really good game if it wasn't for the refs. We just got back from " Westra Waffles" and turns out I can still do a backflip! I also played a lot of catch with a football with Cooper. I got so close by getting some insane catches! I played a lot with Leila and Annie and the trampoline. (If you didn't know, we went to Scott's and Amy's house so that is why we played on a trampoline.) I don't have really have much else to write about this week so I will se you next week. Love you dude! ColtBolt

• Dear Keaton: Haha... That surely is a win in my book. I remember that a good amount of the family got to know Callahan's past girlfriend (Amanda, right?). . . But Clay has not met one of my girlfriends, which is awesome, but will not last forever obviously. Just have to enjoy the peace while I have it. Jajaja. I never did the pumpkin drop! Sounds like a blast! I just remember making a rocket with an egg as the passenger. Hahah my egg did survive, I do not know how. I cannot wait for true American meat! To try all that smoked meat.. I will get super fat. 
• Dear Cooper:It is such a bummer to lose your awesome teachers. Just imagine when you have to missi school in high school! It is even worse! I was just talking with other American missionaries about Fantasy Football, and I wondered "Is there Fantasy Basketball?" and you just answered that question. How weird. Sounds like a blast! Who do you have on your roster?
• Dear Colton:Yikes... Freaking sucky refs.. You can't blame it all on the refs though... I was a ref, and very young one, that made a lot of mistakes... Hahah so why don't you try playing real football? I am pretty sure it would be something you would love! Just need to talk Mom into it... Because it is a bit expensive. Te amo.

Weeks #88 and #89

 The work here in Antequera hasn't been the easiest experience of my mission.. But a week ago, we saw a miracle. It was quite normal during the week. Wednesday, we finally did the divisions with the zone leaders! I was very excited to be accompanied and work with Elder Dominguez. He has got just over a year in the mission, and he knows how to work. We did a little bit of everything. Contacting, knocking doors, finding new investigators. A good day with him. Fasting forward to Saturday, we worked until we collapsed. Our objective was to invite the families we have been teaching to church. We got the chance with every one of them, we invited them, and all said "yes". But here in Mexico. Anyone will say "yes" . . . We didn't give up hope! The following morning was a rush. We had two different members help us out to go and bring the families. Because of the sitting situation in the cars available, we did a little division. The members and I left first with 4 investigators (one of the whole families). We got to church, got everyone seated, all while my companion and the other member were getting the others. I waited, and waited.. but they surely took their time getting ready! En fin, they came. . . They ALL came! 12 investigators in church! It was such a blast! Not only did they enjoy the normal church services. But also able to witness a baptism! My companion and I are very feliz.

Just to show that miracles do happen! All these people were prepared by the Lord, to go to His church, and feel His spirit there.  I wanted to share that quick experience, that was amazing with you all!

This this week? You better believe it. 12 again.

After we had 12 people in church last Sunday, we went ahead with the goal to have 12 again. And with that inspired goal, we had to reach it. To explain a little about the 12 that went last Sunday, they are all extended family. Guillermina is the mother of everyone. She had 11 children, but 9 are still living today, and of those nine we are teaching 5. Of the 5 being taught, 4 went to church. 2 of them that have their own families already. So.. It is awesome. We were expecting all to come again, including the last one that has not come to church yet, but... One had to work, and two of the others were sick. Of the family, we only brought 6. We were a bit disappointed. But to our surprise, we arrived at the church, to find 6 other investigators in church! Boom! 12 once again. Nice little miracle.

We also had our zone conference this week and talked about two important subjects. Inspired questions and listening. The inspired questions honestly have been a challenge for me, but we talked about the different types of inspired questions, which helped me personally: reflection, introspection, and commitments. These 3 types of inspired questions also deal with time, reflection is in the past, introspection in the present, and commitments in the future. Asking these questions helps us know the concerns, worries, and needs of all the investigators. That is where the second subject comes into play.. Listening. 

Anyway, a neat experience, but to talk more about the people... Yesterday we were able to gather most of the family from the hermana Guillermina and to a member's home to watch "Meet the Mormons" . . . Everyone loved it. Tears were shed during and after the movie, once we had the chance to talk about it. Most liked the "The Missionary Mom" story, because this family has suffered the death of one of their dear brothers. The Spirit was so strong, and we know that they all felt it. Still work to do, but we feel that these will be some very needed 12 baptisms for Antequera.

Ask questions, to know the people.

Listen to the answers.

And then listen to the Spirit to know what to do next.

***Between Brothers***

10232016 #88

Dear Landon, I'm going to start off with my one game this weekend. That's right, I said only one! But it was insane. It was also our highest scoring game with 51 points! I'm just going to skip till the end. So there is about 14 seconds left and it's our ball and we are down by two. So my teammate Jackson shoots a three but it doesn't go in, but my teammate Gage grabs the rebound, puts it back up, and gets an AND-1! With the remaining two seconds and he is shooting his free throw, sadly it doesn't go in but it was alright because it forced overtime. I'm just going to skip to the end this time too. There is about 11 seconds left and one of my teammates puts up a shot but it doesn't go in and they grab the rebound. (We were also down by 2 points) as they pass the ball my teammate Gordon steals it, jacks up a fadeaway shot from the corner and banks it! (It was also a three!) So that shot pretty much won us the game. So today dad whipped up some briskit, and some mashed taters. Mom made some regular big bread rolls and some Brazillian cheese rolls. After, we went over to Maga's house to see the kittens and cute cute cute, and small. So that is about all I have for this week, so love you dude!! ColtBolt

Dear Landon, so this week was Fall Break, but all I did was re-watch Worst Cooks in America, played Clash and Pokemon, and did homework. Like I finished my book, but we had a book report due on Monday. I finished it earlier today, but mom reminded me that I had sciences homework, which I would not have done if she hadn't reminded me. But all we had to do was fill out a paper on how we got a hard boiled egg to float by using salt. After this, dad was smoking the brisket in the smoker, and making mashed potatoes. Dad invited Maga along with everybody else, then we went to her house to see the kittens. And they were not lying on how small the "Oreo" cat was. Right now, there is a tiny cat compared to the others, and it is black and white, so Addy was calling him Oreo Jr.. And now I'm sad cause' we have to go back to go back to school tomorrow. :(    Love, Cooper

Dear Landon, I am finally done with Driver's Ed. I just have two more days of roads and I can get my license. This week is the last week of the quarter and not really much more to talk about it. Last Tuesday, I had my big essay test on To Kill a Mockingbird. I wrote three essays, 110 out of 100. The assignment is kind of hard to explain, but I think I did pretty good on it. Last Wednesday, we ran the Mini Tour in basketball. It's pretty much a 5k. The last 5k I ran was in March and I got 24:10 or something like that. This last time I got 18:50 hehe. Yeah I was way surprised how good I did. Idk why, but I've been craving burgers a lot lately lqtm. Dad took me to Five Guys and Salt City Burger Co. I liked Five Guys overall better because their fries are amazing. I also went to the corn maze last night with some friends. It was pretty good! Friday night, I went to a haunted house and it was pretty sketchy. I liked my UEA break. So yeah... Wuv, KEat

10301016 #89

Dear Landon, not much to write about this week because I had to skip both of my basketball games because I was sick. I didn't get to go to practice either. All I know is that my 5th grade team did not win but my 6th grade team did. And one of the worst parts, I got new basketball shoes so I didn't get to test them out for my games. We just went to Maga's house to see the kittens and they have gotten a little bigger since last time. As I told you, Barely anything to write about this week, woould have been a LOT bigger if I had been able to go to my games. So love you dude!            ColtBolt    

Dear Landon, almost nothing happened this week for me, because I was either lying in my bed or on the couch with my sore throat. I was lucky enough to not have school on Friday (because the quarter ended), and I had missed the previous two days. Despite missing those two days, I still had a perfect 4.0. And there was a BIG Pokemon GO special event that is lasting 5 days. So it was a Halloween update, which made the more spooky Pokemon, like Ghastly, Haunter, and Gengar, to spawn a lot more often. And whenever you caught candies from catching a Pokemon, hatching, or transferring, you'd get double, which was very good. Finally, we went to Maga's house to see the kittens, and they are at their cutest stage because they still can't walk or crawl, but they are able to open their eyes, which is the freakin' cutest thing EVER!! Anyway, I am feeling kind of better, and planning on going to school tomorrow.     Love, Cooper

Dear Landon, so something pretty wacky went down this week. You'll just love it! Alright here it is... I finally told Mom and Dad that... I... have... a girlfriend hehe. We've actually been together for a few months and I've just been hiding it because I didn't want to deal with Dad's jokes! And he totally made a ton of jokes! It was awkward when I told Mom... because it was over text lololololololololol! Cal has pretty much known the whole time. I only told Mom and Dad because my friends came over two days ago and they said they were about to expose me. I didn't really care that much. They tried to incidentally have Mom figure it out while she was in the room, but she didn't even hear haha. Other than that, I got a 4.0 first quarter and we have to do the stupid pumpkin drop for physics this week :/ So yeah... her name's Payton. Ya boi, Keat

• Dear Colton: Nuts. Sorry to hear you are sick. Sucks even more that you have to miss games! That surely is a sin.. New shoes, not even used. Haha but how is your school? No manches.. I need to teach you guys funny slang words of Mexico. "No manches" means "don't stain" basically.. But doesn't make a lot of sense translating it.. but you need to say it when you are like "no it can't be!" Or other stuff like that. 
• Dear Cooper: Man being sick is the worst.. Did it not matter to miss the last days of the quarter? Lucky... High five for getting a 4.0! That is bomb! Haha Gengar is pretty cool.. Awe.. I remember seeing kittens in one of my areas when they were in that stage.. It is very adorable! Are you not going to go trick or treating?! Come on... You are turning down FREE candy? So sad.. But whatever, the choice is yours!
• Dear Keaton: Yaaaaaaaaaaaaa boooooooooooooooi. tienes 16 años. entonces estoy bien con la noticia. De verdad, me dio mucha risa a leer los mensajes entre mama y tù. Pero tienes mucha razon.. Papa va a bromear mucho contigo, porque tienes LA NOVIA. Pero de espacio eh? Ten cuidado. Ahora que estoy con 9 misioneras en mi distrito, ya me cansè de mujeres! son locas! Jajaja cuídate mucho hermanito.